The Bounty Knight
by Sydoe
Summary: The story of a young Jedi who works in his free time as a bounty hunter. Incomplete. Rated T for some violent scenes.


**Bounty Knight**

Prologue

Ski'tlo Skat sat at his ordinary sentry post like he did every day, a few miles away from the main temple base there on Honoghr. He wasn't too sure why he why he was placed near the outskirts of the base vicinity, but whatever it was, it must have been dangerous enough to make Ski'tlo's boss place such a fine mercenary there.

From the dust colored sky, a meteor of some sort crashed into the ground and exploded close to where Ski'tlo knew was another sentry post.

Wondering if the sentries there saw anything, he clicked his comlink, "Merphi, what happened? I just saw a meteor crash near your position."

"We…attacked…your…Wait…Stay back...Don't…AAARRRGGGHHHH!" the response came out with a few static pauses, but the ending of the response left Ski'tlo holding his blaster rifle firmly.

Far from his position, Ski'tlo heard a familiar mechanical hum. The hum belonged to a speeder bike and every split-second it became even louder. Unsure of whether this was his friends at the sentry; he called again his friends at the sentry near the explosion.

"Merphi, are you there? Who's coming on the bike?"

There was no response except lots and lots of static. And then a voice, unfamiliar to Ski'tlo responded, "Merphi is taking a break. I'm coming to get you. But you still have a chance to run." The response was followed by more static.

Ski'tlo made a dash for his speeder. He clicked his comlink again and called for home base, "This is sentry 1138, calling for emergency! We have an intruder that has just bypassed outpost 4EB! Requesting assistance immediately! Requesting-"And then, Ski'tlo saw the last thing he'd ever see.

* * *

"Hello? Sentry 1138, do you copy?" the communications receiver at the temple base called. "Repeat last transmission." Trying to key for Ski'tlo's position, the communications receiver keyed on his computer his location.

A map came on his screen and showed that Ski'tlo was heading for the temple and was picking up incredible speed. The receiver's eyes grew wide. How could he possibly do so?

And then, the wall on the receiver's far side exploded sending blocks and bits of concrete and stone coming for him. It destroyed most of the equipment and totally buried the receiver's body. Only his hand was able to climb out of the debris.

But his hand felt serious pain as foot stepped on it. The foot belonged to a well-armored man with a cape flying from his back and a strange mask.

On his head, his mouth and lower parts of the face were covered by a speaker that was shaped to look something like Darth Vader's breathing apparatus that somehow made the voice more mechanical and human at the same time like Jango Fett.

On his upper face, he had long dark messed-up hair and a visor that scaled around his entire eye level. The other areas were left uncovered.

In his right hand, he was holding a weapon-a lightsaber. And on his left, he held the head of Ski'tlo Skat. Releasing the hand from his crushing foot, the masked assassin repeated to the dead receiver, "He said, 'Call reinforcements.'" With that, he threw Ski'tlo's head on the ground and the door slid open with a few dozen mercenaries running in with blasters blazing.

Without even looking, the assassin parried all the blaster shots and caused them to ricochet back into the mercenaries. They all died within those parried shots.

The assassin exited the room and began to tear through the base defenses.

* * *

The chubby Trandoshan with the old school style DC-17 in his hand raced down the end of the hall to open the transparisteel door and shut it immediately. There was no way the bounty hunter could get through. And yet, he somehow forgot the fact that he brought a lightsaber as a weapon.

The lightsaber began to work a hole around the door. The Trandoshan watched the laser blade divert its own way around in a circular formation. As it reached the other end of the circle, the lightsaber was pulled back or most probably deactivated.

The Trandoshan aimed his DC-17 at the door and set it at the highest power level. Suddenly all the lights in the room went off and the Trandoshan was very afraid now. The only light in the room was the DC-17 emergency glow-in-the-dark light, but then again, it was still very dim.

The transparisteel cover busted open and a body flew right through. The Trandoshan fired at it, and probably blasted it to bits. The Trandoshan stood up and came over to the body that fell right through.

The body was lying flat, so the Trandoshan turned him over. There was horror in his face. This couldn't be possible. The body that fell through the hole was that of his lieutenant's. "Lieutenant," he gasped in Trandoshan. He was in shock. As he fell back and tried to look for his DC, which he dropped looking at his lieutenant.

But as he was looking for it, something tapped on his shoulder. The Trandoshan turned around and saw the most horrible thing ever. The masked bounty hunter stood over him with his cape flying behind him and his lightsaber active.

The Trandoshan aimed his DC-17, but the bounty hunter sliced through it with his lightsaber. The Trandoshan threw away the sliced remains of his blaster and crawled backwards.

"You have one chance to stay alive," the visor turned blazing red. "Tell me who're you working for and tell me why he's built a crime ring establishment on Honoghr."

"I work for me and myself only. I'm not-"

"Save it, Bantha poodoo. I put some charges set to explode in one minute. One of them is in the power reactor and you know what that means," the bounty hunter raised his lightsaber towards the Trandoshan's neck. He waved his hand and ordered, "Tell me only what I need to know."

"I work for a Corellian named Kritell Borjo," the Trandoshan confessed. "He's currently doing business on Nar Shaddaa, at least that's what I heard last time he contacted me. Honoghr's a hard place to look through. He figured that maybe this was a nice crime ring base."

"Thanks for your time," the bounty hunter raised his arm at the Trandoshan and a cable shot out from his forearm. The cable tied the Trandoshan up and the bounty hunter carried the Trandoshan with swift force.

Despite his great size, the bounty hunter seemed to have no trouble in carrying him. The bounty hunter leapt out one of the windows and slid down the slope wall of the temple structure.

He dashed as far as he could to a speeder bike parked nearby, tied the Trandoshan to the speeder's back and drove away as fast as he could.

Moments later, the temple exploded in one big BOOM! Debris flew away from the area and landed in various parts of the forest area the bounty hunter rode through, but he dodged the raining debris.

Fire burned in the place of the temple ruins and it burned hard. The Trandoshan watched in horror as the temple exploded again and more debris flew away.

The bounty hunter's ship was not far from the point where they watched the temple explode. To the Trandoshan's surprise, it was a Z-95 Headhunter. Since there wasn't much space though, the Trandoshan was stashed in the cargo hold, which he knew was a very unpleasant experience.

The bounty hunter however remained in constant conversation with the Trandoshan since there was a comlink installed in the cargo hold.

The ship left Honoghr and began towards its next destination.

"So this Borjo, he's a crimelord in Nar Shaddaa?"

"So I've heard. He's mostly operating there, but who can say what?"

"What does he do actually?"

"Borjo's a space pirate, a Corellian born somewhere else. He started dealing with black market groups three years ago. As far as I've heard, he's doing some sort of biological experiment or what not."

"How sure are you he's on Nar Shaddaa?"

"I'm not. I only said _he might_ be on Nar Shaddaa."

"I see."

After a long pause, the Trandoshan asked, "Where are we heading for?"

"Polis Massa asteroid belt."

"Why?"

"You'll see. Stop asking questions."

At that instant, the Z-95 jumped into hyperspace.

* * *

Dareth Kossor stared out the window of his great star cruiser. He patiently waited for their arrival on the tiny planet of Naboo. It was there where his next objective lay. An Imperial uniformed officer came up to him and stood tall.

"My lord, we will arrive at Naboo in ten standard minutes," the officer informed. "Also, the invasion fleet will arrive at approximately the same time we do and our spies will be able to disable defense lines as we began landing."

Dareth turned to face the officer with his opal eyes. As he blinked, his eyes turned fire red. "Good. Ensure that the Queen does not escape. She is crucial to our mission."

"Yes, sir," the officer acknowledged, "I will order immediately stun groups to be posted at the far side of the planet and the entry point."

"Excellent," Dareth praised. "Proceed."

The officer turned and left Dareth back to his view of space.

Thus begun the plot to destroy Luke Skywalker and the New Jedi Order and the Return of the Sith.


End file.
